May 13, 2021

14 Waukee High School Students Win State Robotics Championship

The Circuit Breakers robotics team #10435, competing in the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), has brought home the winning alliance trophy for the State Championship of Iowa for the fourth time in the last five years. The team was ranked 4th in the world as their season came to a close. This would have been their fourth invitation to the World Championship in Detroit, but FIRST made the difficult decision to cancel this year’s competition due to the pandemic.

Despite the pandemic issues, thousands of teams competed worldwide in this year’s game “FIRST® GAME CHANGERS powered by Star Wars: Force for Change”. Most events were held in a remote format which brought a new set of challenges for teams and FIRST Iowa. But the season was still a tremendous success and students learned a lot.

In December and January, the Circuit Breakers team was ranked 1st in the world as they iterated quickly on their winning design and had it working well early in the season. In February and March, the team won their league championship and then their sub-state championship to earn their way to the state championship.

Fun facts about the Circuit Breakers team:

Owen Scott was one of four winners in the state of Iowa of the Iowa Dean’s List award and is now in the running for the national Dean’s List award.
Shriya Magatapalli won the First Lego League Coach/Mentor of the season award.
The team has the 4th highest average score in the world.
Their Youtube channel, “Circuit Breakers 10435”, has generated over 42,000 views this season.
The team has worked with, mentored, and assisted many other teams and students this year, including several First Lego League teams, a team from Libya, students from India, and several other FTC teams.
The team has connected with an array of local communities and professionals and helped spread the spirit of FIRST and STEM in local communities this season, including the Girl Scouts of America and the East Central Iowa STEM community.
They have all 20 of the top 20 scores in the state of Iowa.
They won the Inspire Award at the sub-state competition for performing well in all aspects of robotics, gracious professionalism, mentoring, and promoting STEM/robotics.
At the state competition, the team also won the Motivate Award for the team that represents the essence of the FIRST Tech Challenge competition through Gracious Professionalism and who makes a collective effort to get others involved in STEM and robotics and makes FIRST known throughout their school and community.
They won the Think Award at their League Championship event and received second place for the Think Award at sub-state for implementing the engineering process and applying problem-solving methods throughout the season.